Revealed: How Oxford University is 'home to loud mouthed, Tory-loathing, anti-Israel academics who believe only they should have freedom of expression'

The Reverend Canon Nigel Biggar, Regius Professor of Moral and Pastoral Theology at Christ Church, Oxford, is a gifted orator who has published eight books during the five decades of his career.

A leading authority on religious ethics and an Anglican priest, he is also a senior adviser to the Vatican.

With a gift for explaining complex moral concepts, he is much in demand as a public lecturer and commentator on current affairs.

Among topics he has recently addressed in newspaper articles have been voluntary euthanasia and assisted suicide (both of which he opposes), military action in Syria (which he supports on moral grounds), Israel's treatment of the Palestinians (he has criticised aspects of it) and Scottish independence (he is against).

Although 62-year-old Professor Biggar is generally conservative, his views, like those of most intellectuals, cannot be pigeonholed. Indeed, people of all political persuasions have in recent times taken issue with some of his opinions.

For example, he was criticised by many on the Right for an article about the murderous attack by Islamic extremists on journalists at the satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo, in Paris, which published cartoons depicting the Prophet Mohammed. It argued that the journalists had 'neglected their moral duty' not to cause gratuitous offence to Muslims.

He has also, by way of another example, offended many on the Left by supporting the killing of Osama Bin Laden by U.S. soldiers, arguing that 'rough justice is still justice'.

Having provocative opinions that challenge orthodoxy is what we expect from our great academics and thinkers. Equally, it is an axiom of liberalism that those who disagree should engage in forthright but fair debate.

Sadly, that no longer appears to be the case. For Professor Biggar has become the target of a hysterical social media mob for expressing his views on the British Empire.

In an article for The Times, he wrote that we must 'not feel guilty about our colonial history' and rebuked those who believe that 'apologising for empire is now compulsory', stressing that such attitudes will not help tackle the problems of the modern world.

Inevitably, he attracted an avalanche of odium on Facebook and Twitter as keyboard trolls called him 'racist', 'bigoted', a 'gob*****' and an 'idiot' whose work is 'ill-informed' and recalls 'Hitler and the Nazis'.

But some of his fellow Oxford academics were also vehement critics, and this week it emerged that 58 of them had signed an open letter declaring their 'firm rejection' of his 'agenda'.

They vowed to boycott Professor Biggar's next research project, accusing him of being 'breathtakingly politically naive' and engaging in 'very bad history'.

So what exactly did they find so offensive?

Biggar's article had argued that society ought to take a more 'balanced' view of the rights and wrongs of the British Empire, rather than simply treating it as something to be ashamed of.

While acknowledging that 'atrocities' had occurred under colonial rule, he said the British Empire had provided law and order to other countries, which many citizens had valued.

Accepting that the Empire's legacy was 'morally mixed', he went on to say that our current Government might feel too afraid to intervene to stop human rights abuses overseas if policy were dictated by 'unwarranted guilt' about what Britain had done in the past.

Note his use of the words 'balanced' and 'mixed'. He was not celebrating colonialism or excusing the crimes carried out in its name. He was merely pointing out that it should be viewed in context and analysed with intellectual rigour.

Yet here, and elsewhere in modern academia, questioning orthodoxy and engaging with uncomfortable ideas appears to represent heresy.

Instead, as Biggar's recent experience illustrates, intellectual debate is shut down and other academics are attacked online for expressing any views that are even mildly contentious.

University campuses across the land have become so-called 'safe spaces' where students demand the right to be 'protected' from ideas that might challenge their world-view, and potentially controversial speakers are 'no-platformed' — prevented from giving talks.

Recent victims of this trend include Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson (who was accused of saying something racist about Barack Obama) and the feminist Germaine Greer (who has upset transsexuals). Then there was the Nobel Prize-winning scientist Sir Tim Hunt, forced to resign from University College London for allegedly telling a sexist joke.

Meanwhile, at King's College, London, the student union is paying for 'safe space marshals' to patrol events and report speakers who voice opinions deemed unacceptable. Three attended a speech recently by Tory MP Jacob Rees-Mogg.

To many, all this represents an ugly totalitarianism.



Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-5207687/Oxford-home-Tory-loathing-anti-Israel-academics.html#ixzz5258n5In8
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"..Ugly totalitarianism." !!!

What a bunch of Tory-loving snowflake reporters they must be employing at the Daily Flail these days..

So as per usual, Wolf tries to brush under the carpet any authoritarianism from the left and thinks its funny.

Its odd, though, when we both agree when it happens on the right its wrong.

Double standards much by Wolf?

Now has yet again Wolf tackled the topic?

Nope

Didge wrote:So as per usual, Wolf tries to brush under the carpet any authoritarianism from the left and thinks its funny.

Its odd, though, when we both agree when it happens on the right its wrong.

Double standards much by Wolf?

Now has yet again Wolf tackled the topic?

Nope

Still no intelligent reply from Wolf

Hey ho,

''University campuses across the land have become so-called 'safe spaces' where students demand the right to be 'protected' from ideas that might challenge their world-view, and potentially controversial speakers are 'no-platformed' — prevented from giving talks.''

you are right didge

it is not just ridiculous, it is that the students are damaging themselves by closing themselves in and thinking themselves ''safe''. they wont be at uni forever and someone somewhere will at some point challenge their world-view so what's the point of it?

merry christmas

gelico wrote:

''University campuses across the land have become so-called 'safe spaces' where students demand the right to be 'protected' from ideas that might challenge their world-view, and potentially controversial speakers are 'no-platformed' — prevented from giving talks.''

you are right didge

it is not just ridiculous, it is that the students are damaging themselves by closing themselves in and thinking themselves ''safe''.  they wont be at uni forever and someone somewhere will at some point challenge their world-view so what's the point of it?

merry christmas

This is the most telling point. For students to lock themselves away from views they find upsetting, shows they have no concievable hope of challenging those views, that has led to these fears. Its a typical leftist mentality. You know, if the Uk was at war tomorrow. Those radical leftists, would be advocating for people to hide. In the daft hope that the war will go away.

They do not want to deal with issues and it proves, that they cannot handle issues. Making them completely socially immature. Which leads to insecurities.

Its worse than trying to push a problem away. This has them try to hide from issues within the world, not ever dealing with them. I sadly gurantee, that the millennials will have a divorce rate of 90% in years to come. As they will forever run away from issues. What these students are admitting to, is that they have no common sense, and easily seduced by people. It also shows they have zero faith in what they believe also, if they cannot defend their beliefs.

And Merry Christmas to you and your family Gelico

"The Didge and gelico that stole Christmas"  !!!
                 

WhoseYourWolfie wrote:

"The Didge and gelico that stole Christmas"  !!!
                 

Two points to garner from the above.

1) Wolf still cannot respond to reasonable points around this and those that express them. Being that the youth of today. Are not able to deal with things that may upset them ideolgically. Imagine how this then leads to how they are then unable to raise children?

That they want to hide away from those issues, which has a knock on effect. In how their children will grow up unable to challenge and reason against. Something they do not agree with. If they need to hide away from views they dislike. 

I mean do they hide in the toilet everytime they have an argument in a relationship?

2) The second point is this.

Merry Christmas, to you Wolf and your family